A Prayer for the Dying

A Prayer For the Dying

Part One: Chapter One

"May all our children learn

The tide of right will turn

Giants fall, tigers burn

And someday with the dawn

They're gone."

Severus, 1977:

I was sitting in a bar, a club really, in a little Death Eater controlled village in Northern Scotland, where local bargirls in bikinis waltzed from table to table, selling tickets for something I hadn't been paying attention to. It didn't matter anyway; I wasn't interested in the scantily clad women. I swirled my drink irritably and watched the scene in disgust.

Death Eaters, no better than Muggle soldiers when it comes to the take over and holding of a city, disgusting, the whole lot of them. All we're doing is making money for the downtrodden of this hell. I understand trying to show that we're powerful, but isn't this just a little bit ridiculous?

One of the women, skinner than some of the others, with long hair, came up to me and, smiling beguilingly, asked if I wanted to join the fray.

"You want to buy a ticket, only five pounds? Very cheap. If your ticket is picked, you win the girl who wins the beauty contest. Nice, huh? So, you want to buy one?" Her smile didn't slip as she held out the tin for my money. In her other hand she held a little blue ticket with a number on it.

"No." I dismissed her completely with both the word and the casual indifference I cultivated as I turned away.

Her smile slipped and she glared prettily at me, her dark eyes narrowing.

"You cheap upper-class son of a bitch!" she snapped, "You have money! We need that money more than you ever will!"

"Hey, you're cute when you're angry, did you know that, sweetheart?" I said nastily, sipping my drink.

She stamped her foot, the spike heel of her black pumps making a loud crack against the uncarpeted floor. But she moved onto the next guy she could spot, somebody four stools down the bar from me, without another comment. He, apparently won over by her minimal clothing, bought two tickets and she sauntered away from him very pleased with herself. I rolled my eyes.

Then the 'beauty contest' started and I was stuck sitting there in the back watching five women come one by one onto the makeshift stage to get the men to vote on which one they wanted to fuck the most. The pimp running the whole show said that the winner of the contest would get the girl for free.

Free, eh? And after paying five pounds just to enter the damn contest, too. These girls wouldn't even cost that much normally, two pounds at most; Northern Scotland isn't exactly the best place to go for a whore. And these idiots are buying it, too. Gods preserve us.

"This is ridiculous, don't you think?" a man with a heavy French accent spoke from behind me. "So degrading."

"Yes," I replied absently, "Pointless and degrading. I don't even know why we're out here in the middle of fucking nowhere. It doesn't make sense no matter how you look at it."

I knew that I was saying too much, that the Frenchman could have been especially devoted to the cause, that he could try to turn me in for treason. But I also knew that I didn't really care enough to apologise or act like it was a joke.

Setting my empty glass down, I turned to look at the man I was speaking to.

May as well see him if he decides to take me out.

Instead, I found myself looking down into mesmerizing eyes that glittered with mirth; the young man was shorter than me, very thin; he had shoulder length dark brown hair, pale skin, and those eyes, eyes of the darkest possible blue, eyes that danced as though the world was a joke there for the sole purpose of his amusement. I blinked slowly before speaking.

"I've been rude, I apologise. One should at least know the name of the person to whom they are complaining."

He chuckled.

I held out my hand, he took it. "My name is Severus Snape."

"Alain Mounier. It is - how do you say it in this country? - a pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Likewise, I'm sure." I smiled back at him, with more warmth than I normally showed; the young Frenchman was charming in a naïve sort of way. I wondered vaguely how someone who appeared to be that innocent could be part of a group such as the Death Eaters.

"Why are you here?" he asked quietly, looking at me closely.

"Here specifically? Or just alive in general?"

He laughed. "Here specificall. We'll discuss why you are alive some other time."

"I am here," I began slowly. "Because I have nowhere else to be. It seemed like a good idea to come here at the time. So, why are you here?" I really didn't want to go into my presence on the island, so I changed the subject. It was clumsy, I knew, but the first thing to come to mind is rarely award-winningly clever.

"I...went to England, London, about a month ago, somehow got mixed in with this, and the next thing I knew, I found myself out here in the, as you say, 'middle of fucking nowhere'."

I chuckled. "The middle of nowhere it is, all right." I held up my glass in mock salute. "Your English is good, you know, for someone who has only been in Britain for a month."

"Thank you." He smiled again.

The conversation went on, I bought him a drink and we spent our evening just...talking. It was incredibly refreshing, a welcome change from the norm. I found myself liking Alain, almost in spite of myself.

Somehow, a part of me knew that in this Alain Mounier, I had found a kindred soul.

-

Harry, 1998:

War council. That wasn't what they were calling it, but that was, of course, what it was. I knew; so did others. Even the ones who denied it, deep down, knew exactly what it was. I sat back in my chair and watched people gather, watched the members of the new council convene to discuss all possible courses of action. People I knew, all of them; people I had gone to school with, my age, a few younger, a couple older, Snape and Dumbledore the only real adults among us.

Snape looked sour, that didn't surprise me, he probably saw this, as I did, for what it really was: a committee drawn together out of sheer desperation and lack of anything better to do.

The door closed finally, the last of the group, a couple of stragglers, taking the remaining seats. There was something strange about the whole meeting, a raw, pure sensation that permeated the room and made me feel slightly nauseated.

Then I knew exactly what it was.

Fear.

They were afraid.

I looked around me, at the council that had been called, and I knew then that, when it came down to the line and all previous attitudes had been stripped away, they were really just children. Just frightened, cornered, exhausted children.

It is now the children who must stand on the front lines and fight for a future that may never come. And may God save us all.

"So..." Dumbledore paused; everyone turned to look at him. "Before we begin, does anyone have any thoughts on the war effort?"

"Things are not going well," I said flatly. "We are out manned, out powered, and absolutely exhausted. I'm honestly surprised that we haven't started dropping dead from the sheer effort of being on the battlefield. We need a new tactic, as the 'run at them and hope they're having an off day' plan is sending us all straight to hell."

Blaise laughed and applauded. Others looked angry at what they viewed as an insult. Others still just looked tired. A few, including Snape, looked amused.

"Anyone else?" The twinkle had begun to show again in Dumbledore's eyes.

"I agree with Harry," Dean Thomas said, the only one to speak.

"Well, that ends that, I suppose," was Snape's contribution.

Dumbledore spoke again, as my response had silenced the others. "We do need to change something. What we are doing now is not working, there must be another, a new, way."

"Why?" a Hufflepuff boy demanded. "Why do we have to change our way of doing things?" He turned to me. "This is your fault! Without you telling us that we have to change the way things work, we wouldn't even be having this discussion!"

I looked at him, my face set in an expression of perfect calm. His words, his accusations, they didn't have any affect on me; I simply looked at him, waiting.

As a young, neglected child, I had built walls in my mind, high, impenetrable walls behind which I was safe, behind which I could hide. I smiled and spoke and acted calm and cordial, but beneath it all, I was a thousand miles away, completely alone and out of reach. That was what I truly longed for: oblivion.

He was the first to look away.

I eyed him closely for a moment more before speaking.

"You are the kind of person I distrust most, the kind who claims to want to improve our lives, yet has only one course of action."

Then I turned away.

Seamus spoke up, "Why don't we just attack them the same way they attack us? An eye for an eye, you know. We're being too nice, too decent. That's why we can't win!"

There was silence. No one quite had an answer to that, though many were, I am sure, approving of the suggestion.

"As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil they set out to destroy," Snape said softly, an insinuating implication of how evil became evil. I nodded, but was one of the few who did so.

Seamus had the grace to look somewhat abashed. His supporters, the ones who had liked that idea, were not so courteous. One of them, a former Ravenclaw, a year older than us named Michael Edwards, reacted badly.

"So, we have to sit back and let them slaughter us?"

"Did I say that?" Snape focused his gaze on the boy's face.

"Well...no, but -"

"As you say, he did not say that. This discussion is closed," I said firmly.

"But it wasn't a bad idea! And why should we trust him anyway? My parents told me all about him, you know, about his past, who he is, what he's done! I don't think I have to listen to him! Or you," he began shouting and I knew that I had to cut him off, so I did so, dousing him and the rest of the room in cold water. They had to know that I was an absolute authority to be obeyed at all costs.

"Mister Edwards, get out," I said coldly, "As of this moment, you are fired; another will be found to take your seat. You have overstepped your boundaries and are no longer welcome in this council."

He looked at me, outraged, as did half the room. I was, however, completely within my rights as the leader of that group; it was my job to keep order among the ranks. A few moments passed, and then he got up and left the room, the door closing powerfully behind him.

"You just fired him," Ron's voice was faintly incredulous.

"Yes, I fired him. In case you're wondering, I didn't fire him because he was a stupid son of a bitch - although he was - but that's not against the law. If it were, half to three-quarters of the world would be in prison."

"Then why did you fire him?"

"Because he disregarded an order from me. There has to be some sort of order in this and if the council won't take my orders, how can I expect anyone else to follow them?"

A pause. Then Dumbledore adjourned the meeting, letting people leave, the confusion too palpable in the air for anything else to be done. Not that much had been done anyway.

Blaise waited for me, as I, true to my custom, waited for everyone else to leave ahead of me. When the room cleared and only we were left, he came over and slid his arm around my waist.

"That was interesting," he said smoothly, resting his head on my shoulder, as he was wont to do.

"I had to do something, these wastrels have to know that I am the ultimate authority here, even more so than Dumbledore." I kissed the top of his head and then rested my face in his hair.

"Harry, I..." He drew in a deep breath. "I just want you to know, before things really go to hell, you are a great man."

I blinked; it was such a un-Blaise thing to say. But I smiled, too; I knew that that wasn't true.

"Blaise, if I am a great man, then all great men are frauds."

-

Blaise, 1996:

I wanted to die.

It was really that simple. I honestly didn't think I was capable of going on.

Finally, after years of not seeing things as they were, of going so far as to ignore the way things were, I had looked, really looked. And what I saw made me sick.

I saw people killing people for no reason at all. I saw hatred and prejudice without source. I saw things that I had ignored because I didn't want to know. And that, in itself, sickened me, too.

What I wanted was, when the world gets blown to hell, to be able to cry out with the chorus: I didn't know!

I sighed heavily and leaned against the windowsill. I was up in one of the towers, letting the cold night air blow in my face so that I could think. I glanced at the ground.

No, I won't kill myself, I can't.

I closed my eyes against the oncoming headache building in the front of my skull.

I'm a coward. And what's worse, I'm a blind coward. Marvellous, just marvellous.

Something had to be done. I knew that much. What to do, on the other hand, was something I didn't know.

"Are you going to jump, or are you waiting for someone to push you?"

I started, turning sharply to tell off whomever it was that had come to disturb my silence.

It was Harry Potter.

"What do you want, Potter?"

He smiled slightly and stepped closer to me. "Actually, I wanted to think. However, when I saw that this tower was occupied, I wanted to find out if you were going to jump anytime soon, clearing the space at the window."

I smiled back, in spite of myself. "No, I'm not going to jump. I was thinking. You're disturbing my solitude."

"Am I?" he asked lightly, making no move to leave from the place he had settled against the wall.

"Yes."

He gave a sort of half shrug, a gesture for use among equals. He knew that, I knew that, and I could tell that he knew that I knew that.

Interesting.

"What are you thinking about?" he asked suddenly, after a moment of stillness.

"The nature of war."

He blinked slowly. "War is simply a continuation of politics by other means, you know."

"What?"

"It's all just politics. You get used to it after a while. You want to know the truth? This war has nothing to do with right and wrong and purity of blood, it's just the continuation of explosive politics that have been in stalemate for over a decade. There's nothing you can do to prevent something like this, you just have to sit back and go along for the ride. It will resolve itself eventually."

"You don't sound very much like a Gryffindor," I said dryly.

"No? Well, I suppose I've seen a little more than the rest. I used to be bitter about it, everyone is when they first have their eyes opened to reality, but then I grew up. What can you do?"

"I don't know," I hesitated, on the verge of saying something else, but before I could he spoke again.

"Listen, Blaise, whatever else it is we do, we provide good theatre. Keep that in mind and things will make a hell of a lot more sense."

I looked at him for a long moment, shaking my head. I didn't understand what it was he was telling me, but I had the strangest feeling that it would mean something to me in time.

Whatever else it is we do, we provide good theatre. I rolled the words around in my mind. It sounded good, at least.

"You're insane, Harry." He had called me Blaise; I felt a need to return the compliment.

"Insane? Of course I'm insane. Without insanity, you know, there can be no genius." His smile returned and his eyes glittered in the half-light.

I looked at him, at a young man I barely knew, whom I had never felt any need to know, and I suddenly recalled something someone had once whispered to me upon seeing Harry Potter enter a room.

'To people like him, death is just a formality.'

In that moment, in that place, I could believe it.